Passengers stuck on Amtrak train w/o bathroom, AC

HF has two engines because there are no cab cars available. The other choice would currently be to simply discontinue service, which is probably undesirable.

Heartland Flyer used to run with a cabbage car on one end. Story goes that after some single-locomotive trains went dead, with resultant bad publicity, Oklahoma insisted that two locomotives be assigned. Of course, as Jis has pointed out, that just leads to more failures overall unless maintenance practices are reformed, and it certainly hurts the economics of the train.

The Piedmonts in North Carolina are of similar length, and they run with only one locomotive. For that matter, so do Amtrak's Carolinian and Palmetto. The Crescent, Silver Meteor, and (of course) Auto Train always get two. CSX is reported to insist that the Silver Star always run with two also, after bad experiences with only one.

In general, one of the consequences of asking states to fund trains is that one has to do their bidding if theya re paying for it. Which means states do get priorityt on equipment demands if they pay the asking price for it to Amtrak. Which of course means that Amtrak's own service may suffer as a result. It unfortunately is a zero sum game when it comes to equipment allocation. The Allocation that gets maximum revenue by some reckoning wins, whether right or not.

NCDOT opted not to use Amtrak locomotives for the Piedmonts, except as fill-in's when an NCDOT locomotive goes into a shop for heavy repairs. NCDOT does its own everyday maintenance, and over-the-road failures are rare. Of course, each locomotive runs only 300 miles round-trip before it's looked at.

brentrain17 said:

these things happen, train , plane or even auto. travel can be an adventure.

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When was the last time an aircraft ran out of power and hung in the air without power for hours with inop restrooms and no food or air conditioning? And when was the last time this happened on the road, where the passengers couldn't get out and breathe?

henryj said:

The heartland flyer is a three car train and has an engine on each end. The Eagle is a LD train of six or seven cars and gets one engine.

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We love our little Heartland Flyer and would like to see TWO Engines on each end :lol:

VIA Rail seems to have addressed the issue of HEP reliability. In recent years they have added a separate CAT V8 engine for HEP Power. It’s under the raised section at the rear of the FP40H-3’s. In this location it can be maintained easily and replaced quickly if needed.

FWIW; VIA Rail seems to have no problem pulling 22-25 cars on the summer Canadian at 79 - 90MPH with only two FP40's.

jis said:

Here is a case for dual prime mover locomotives!

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Or for fixed consist distributed traction DMUs

Paulus said:

jis said:

Here is a case for dual prime mover locomotives!

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Or for fixed consist distributed traction DMUs

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Of course. But that would be too logical.

Keeping a 25-car passenger train rolling at 79+ mph on level track is well within the capability of two F40 or P42 locomotives. Getting such a train up a 2% grade at that speed? Nope. Nor would you want to start and stop such a long train every 20 miles for stations, unless you are willing to re-gear the locomotives so that their top-end speed is 79 or 90. But when you've got an hour between stations, let 'em run.

Note that two P40s do just fine with the Auto-Train, at up to 50 cars. But the route of the Auto Train is mostly flat, and it makes only one stop en route (Florence SC) unless a dispatcher stabs it.

xyzzy said:

Note that two P40s do just fine with the Auto-Train, at up to 50 cars. But the route of the Auto Train is mostly flat, and it makes only one stop en route (Florence SC) unless a dispatcher stabs it.

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Yep and the dispatcher stabs it at least 90 minutes worth on a normal day. When it got a clear railroad last weekend it arrived into Lorton 2 hours ahead of schedule.

The P42s are only 13-18 years old -- so they should last for another decade or two -- but the service cycle used by Amtrak is brutal. Hopefully the arrival of more "corridor" locomotives will allow for a less punishing service cycle.

Unfortunately, the P42s also have commercially obsolete technology.

The dual-modes used for Albany-NYC service have AC motors. But the P42s and P40s have *brushed DC motors*. They're extremely good brushed DC motors with a particularly excellent reputation -- but brushed DC motors are obsolete technology for good reason: little moving parts which wear out and need repair and replacement. For new stuff, everyone either uses AC induction motors or one of the types of brushless DC motors (electronically commutated motors). Honestly, at some point it will stop being worth replacing the brushes -- brushes are becoming a specialty item as brushed motors disappear from the market completely, so the prices are only going to go up. And brushes wear out fast in heavy usage.

Also, modern diesel locomotives are starting to come with large batteries so that they can use regenerative braking. Large batteries also provide a boost to instantaneous acceleration. I don't know if the 125mph diesel corridor locomotives will have this feature, but the P42s certainly don't.

http://inhabitat.com/european-electric-trains-could-soon-become-hybrids-thanks-to-regenerative-braking-system/

http://www.technologicvehicles.com/en/green-transportation-news/2244/the-first-diesel-electric-train-with-regenerative-braking-tested-in-germany

http://www.industrytap.com/ges-hybrid-locomotive-moves-a-ton-of-freight-500-miles-on-a-gallon-of-fuel/4226

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KiHa_E200

Even locomotives without big batteries are still designed to use regenerative braking to supply HEP. The P42 doesn't do that either.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/mechanical/locomotives/emd-reenters-passenger-rail-market-with-spirit.html?channel=41

There's the EPA diesel emissions standards, of course; the P42s were only required to meet Tier 0 (they may actually be better than this), but the current standard is Tier 4. And of course the P42s have a lower top speed than is commercially desirable when travelling on the upgraded routes (Michigan, Illinois, California), though that's actually relatively minor compared to the aforementioned advances in technology.

It's probably going to be commercially desirable for Amtrak to replace the P42s well before they wear out. Of course, Amtrak won't be able to afford to do that, so they'll probably be around for quite a while.

xyzzy said:

Jis is right. Merely adding a 2nd locomotive to short trains that run slower than 80 mph will compound the problem; there will be twice as many locomotives to fail. The question is why do locomotives fail in the first place and what does it take to reduce the failure rate by 80-90%.

Airlines aren't the same as trains when it comes to passengers held captive by lengthy delays. In theory an airplane can taxi to an unoccupied gate or to a spot on the tarmac where air-stairs can be driven up for unloading passengers. If a train can't move, it can't move -- and it often happens in an inaccessible location. You really don't want passengers dismounting and scrambling around on ballast and ties, dealing with the detritus that is often found along the tracks.. not to mention trestles, etc. The real question is one of design: how to ensure that HEP is available 99.99% of the time, even if the prime mover of the locomotive goes down, even if a traction motor freezes up an axle, etc.

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The only way to ensure HEP works 99.99% of the time is if Amtrak's locomotives had auxiliary generators separate from the prime mover, however for some reason Amtrak only does Prime mover HEP.

There is also the "Private Varnish" solution: Equip every passenger car (or at least every passenger car operating in long-distance trains where single-point failure would have unduly adverse results) with its own stand-by generator. The generators would not start unless HEP was lost.